Big Question

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 03 Sep 2001, and now archived in the Forum Library.

White Oleander	03 Sep 2001
Tarot is free-thinking and open to interpretation right? So if I said "What is the meaning of the Sun card?" Could I rightfully say whatever I wanted to? Like it represents hate and evil? (which is the complete opposite in my mind. Oh, and the card isn't reversed or being used in a reading or spread, just it's general meaning) What would you guys say the meaning of the Sun is? I'm very interseted in seeing if the responses are varied or not.

Kiama	04 Sep 2001
Well, I don't care very much for this card: It has never spoken to me that much. However, I have always asscoiated it with good times ahead, charity and volunteer work, feeling very healthy, having young children around you, and possibly a birth. It also bodes well for good family life, and tells you to get out in the open and enjoy yourself more often.... Kiama

Buca	04 Sep 2001
You will find different people use the cards in different ways and hold different beliefs.But I donot think that you can fix any meaning to a card. You should be able to justify why you have that association. You should also be able to tell about a cards meaning from the illustration of the card.(So you may find that people who use the same deck have very similar meanings, while those using different decks are looking at different illustrations and gaining different meanings.).I use numerology as a basis for my tarot readings so, The sun to me signifies the start of a new positive begining and the ending of an old path that has served its purpose. Because 19 is reduced to 10 9+1 which is an indication of completeness, but this also becomes 1 1+0 which indicates a new start. The illustration on the R-W deck mirrors this showing a baby, a new life created from a successful union, the sun shines above, which is generaly taken to be a good sign- the suns energy being needed to sustain life.

White Oleander	13 Sep 2001
I didn't mean I was having trouble with the sun, I meant a person could interpet the cards how ever they want... technically (Whether they're predictions come true or not is another story). Tarot has no rules but say what you feel is right. So someone could feel that the Sun card (right side up) represents death and destruction if they feel it. But almost everyone tarot reader reads the Sun as a good sign of luck and fortune and the sort. So how could anybody really tell you the definition of what a card is supposed to mean?

Major Tom	13 Sep 2001
Quote: White Oleander (14 Sep, 2001 04:56): I didn't mean I was having trouble with the sun, I meant a person could interpet the cards how ever they want... technically (Whether they're predictions come true or not is another story). Tarot has no rules but say what you feel is right. So someone could feel that the Sun card (right side up) represents death and destruction if they feel it. But almost everyone tarot reader reads the Sun as a good sign of luck and fortune and the sort. So how could anybody really tell you the definition of what a card is supposed to mean? Yes - someone could even make up their very own tarot deck and interpret those cards any way they wished :D And as long as they believed it worked for them - it would :D I would certainly say that the measure of effectiveness is whether it works. }> People can only provide the answers that they believe in. If you don't believe - it won't work for you }>

luna	13 Sep 2001
Not the Sun card, but the Sun itself. What does one think of feel when they see the Sun. It is a sustainer of life. The Sun is a giant ball of gas and chemical reaction explosions. The Sun proides light so that we can see. The Sun sometimes can cause one to become ill. The sun causes plants to grow. It can be taken in what ever direction one feels is right for the moment.

Mojo	13 Sep 2001
I have to agree with Tom. I think the answer to your question lies in how consistently you apply whatever definition you come up with for a card. If the sun means doom and gloom to you, and it always pretty much means doom and gloom to you, then it will come up when doom and gloom is called for. Believing in your own system of values and practices is the all important differential. I believe the cards work through synchronicity and the collective unconscious, so it would make sense that it would provide the appropriate card based on the belief system of the person asking the question or tossing the cards. If, on the other hand, you make up a random meaning for a card every time it comes up, you're likely to get readings that make little or no sense. Tarot is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.

Marion	14 Sep 2001
Hi, I also suggest that you look back through at least two threads, Tarotic Relativism, and What is tarot? Both discussed this. If I may summarize (and that invariably gets you into trouble), about three of us felt that Tarot itself was a system, and that changing it all around and making up new meanings and ways of using it might 'work', but it wasn't tarot. And, that cards did have meanings, very wide and flexible and open to intutitions, but they did have archetypal meanings. The weight of the board (again, I am interpreting) was that both the system itself and the cards were merely starting points for intuitive insights and that no, no matter how broad, specific meanings could not be defined. That books were just the authors' opinions, and the like. Forgive me if I am wrong, but I only recall myself, Yarnie and Talisman on the first 'side' of the discussion with the vast weight on the other. Anyway, try those threads to see if it helps. How many Tarot readers does it take to change a lightbulb? Well, just what is a lightbulb anyway? 8)

The Big Question thread was originally posted on 03 Sep 2001 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.